


Like real people do

by queerly_it_is



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Boys Being Boys, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Practice Kissing, Shotgunning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 07:45:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2420705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerly_it_is/pseuds/queerly_it_is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles waits until Scott’s focused on the game, eyes narrowed and his tongue poking at the corner of his mouth, fingers tapping at the controller, before he says, “So I think we should kiss.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> For razz, who turned to me and said, "Skittles kissing practice," and then mocked me as I lost all control. Thanks to kami for the beta.
> 
> Title from Hozier.

Stiles waits until Scott’s focused on the game, eyes narrowed and his tongue poking at the corner of his mouth, fingers tapping at the controller, before he says, “So I think we should kiss,” like he’s telling Scott they should go for ice cream or picking out a movie. He gets the casual tone just right, so the dry runs in front of his bathroom mirror were totally worth it. If nothing else crops up he’s gonna look into a career on the stage.

It takes a second or three, and then Scott’s head snaps around to stare at him. His mouth’s hanging kind of open and his eyebrows are doing a little dancy thing between a confused frown and a surprised vanishing act into the hair that’s flopping onto his forehead. It’s kind of ridiculously adorable and Stiles is having a hard enough time controlling his nerves as it is. There’s a sad descending bleep from the TV as Scott loses all three of his remaining lives.

“Never gonna beat my high score like that,” Stiles says, but Scott acts like he doesn’t know the TV is even there much less on and flashing GAME OVER. The strobing light catches his eyes, his lashes, the spit on his lips that drags Stiles’ brain back to _kissing_ like it ever actually forgot the way.

It’s... frustrating, how hard Stiles’ stomach drops, how much his chest expands and then collapses like the air around an explosion just because Scott looks like Scott and because sometimes he looks at Stiles with a focus that makes Stiles want to offer things he doesn’t have but would totally steal without hesitation or remorse.

Some people, possibly their parents, think Stiles has a kind of control or power in their friendship because he’s the one who comes up with the plans that get them in trouble. Those people have no idea. Stiles spends a lot of time wondering if he adds extra risk to his ideas just to see if Scott’ll take the reins away from him, then wondering what that would look like. It’s a train of thought that typically ends at jerk off junction, if he’s more honest with himself than he tries to be on most days.

“Uh,” Scott says, “since when do you want to kiss me?”

Ah. At least he prepared a response for that one. He rolls his eyes. “It’s not about _wanting_ to, dude. It’s about the fact that we both made it all the way to fifteen without so much as kissing anyone.” A thought sticks like an icicle in the back of his head. “Right? You haven’t either? Scott, you’d tell me if you’d made it with someone, right? Buds don’t keep stuff like that from each other.” He’s gone off the script now, but hey, improv is an actor’s greatest strength, or whatever.

“I haven’t kissed anyone!” Scott says, high and kind of squeaky. The frantic pattering voice in Stiles’ head takes a break from thinking about macking on his best friend and about other people potentially macking on said best friend and all the ways Stiles could make their life hell to rewind the night, trying to remember if Scott’s carrying his inhaler. Doesn’t matter; he’s got the backup over in his hoodie, within reach as always.

“Right,” he says, poking Scott in the shoulder with a finger. “See? We’re _fifteen_. What happens if we get to sixteen and don’t kiss anyone, huh?”

“I don’t know,” Scott says, still not letting up with the stare. “What?”

“Well... I don’t know,” Stiles says, “but all the evidence available in movies and TV shows suggests we’ll end up sad old dudes with terrible moustaches and body odour who resort to killing prostitutes. Or worse, guys who don’t get laid at prom. Maybe both.”

“What movies are you watching?”

“The _point_ ,” Stiles says, “is that it’s not a risk we should be taking. Imagine your mom’s face if you killed a hooker.”

“Stiles, I’m not gonna—”

“No you’re not,” Stiles says triumphantly. “Because, I, as your best friend in this life and any possible reincarnations—” (they pinky swore on that years ago) “—am gonna save you from a horrible fate.”

“By kissing me,” Scott says, and it’s—yeah, Stiles maybe needs to get his heart examined. This can’t be normal. How are his palms this sweaty when his mouth is this dry.

“By us kissing each other so that we know what we’re doing when we get, y’know. Dates. Love lives. Romantic entanglements.”

“Is this about Lydia?” Scott asks with a little frown line between his eyebrows. Stiles rubs his hands on his pants because, really, so much clammy sweat, and also so he won’t reach out and smooth that crease away. Scott’s slipping into Concerned Friend Mode, which Stiles knew might happen but couldn’t think of a way to prevent. Scott’s gonna worry himself sick one day. If he didn’t like having Scott’s attention so much Stiles might put some work into being less of a hassle.

“No,” he says, with the benefit of honesty. Not that he doesn’t think about kissing Lydia. He imagines everyone thinks about kissing Lydia. It’s just one of those things. “It’s about the fact that we’re both kiss virgins.”

“We’re everything virgins,” Scott points out.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Stiles groans, slumping a little against the foot of the bed. Their knees bump when he sits up straight again. He gives Scott a smile and Scott’s mouth shapes an answering one like a reflex, like conditioning. It’s not a turn on Stiles wants to be this aware of at this exact moment. “But hey, we’ve gotta start somewhere. Can’t get a home run if you never get past first base.”

“And you wanna go around the bases with me?” Scott asks, eyebrows sliding under his mop of hair this time. A lot of warm, twisty things happen to Stiles’ insides. His face is probably one of those random shades of reddish pink you only see in paint swatches, like Summer Coulis or Raspberry Diva or something. There’s sweat itching in all the places his back is pressed to the bed.

“Getting kind of ahead of yourself there, buddy,” he says, throat feeling like it’s been filled with sand.

Scott makes a face at him. His cheeks are going pink now too. Stiles immediately thinks of how much he’d blush with someone touching him all over. He’s in so much trouble.

“Shut up,” Scott says, shoving at him. “You’re the one talking about us making out.”

“We don’t _have_ to,” Stiles says. He always says that at some point. It’s more of signpost now: _THIS WAY TO A BAD IDEA._

“Do you want to?” Scott asks, already leaning a little closer and licking his lips, which, really. Unfair.

“I—” Stiles starts, swallows. “I just think we should know how.” There’s a kind of sour burning in his belly, like the want is eating a hole in him. He can feel his pulse in his cheeks. Scott smells really good. “For—for later. When we kiss people for real.”

“So,” Scott says, and they’re sitting very close now, close enough that Stiles can feel the hitch in Scott’s breathing before he says, “How do you want to—” and Stiles decides the verbal portion of the exam is over and presses his mouth to Scott’s.

Scott’s mouth is really warm and wet—

And he tastes like spit and the sharp back-of-your-tongue bite of sugar from the sour gummy worms they were eating on the bus on the way home—

Stiles’ sweaty hand is on Scott’s knee and Scott’s palm is somehow hotter than Stiles’ cheek when he puts it there—

And Stiles is making a groan/whimper/grunt/whine of a noise and Scott’s swallowing it—

He’s shutting his eyes and their lips tilt and it’s _right_ and then one of them laughs and it’s over.

Stiles fell out of a tree when he was fourteen. He doesn’t remember why he was in the tree or where the tree was, even. But he remembers how the ground took a weirdly long time to hit him and the whip of the air in his ears and the way everything was suddenly slowed way down and somewhere else, flipping and rearranging inside and outside like gravity didn’t mean anything even while it was the most powerful, inescapable thing there was. He got the wind knocked out of him and he ached all over, but he was grinning too hard and flying too high to even care if he’d broken anything.

Kissing Scott is a lot like that.

“Okay,” he says, because somebody should say _something_. Leave a silence alone for long enough and anything could start growing in it.

“Yeah?” Scott asks, smiling faintly with his shiny, pretty, kissed-open mouth and his pink cheeks and his dumb hair that Stiles wishes so much that he’d put his fingers in that it actually makes his hands do an electric little twitch.

“That was... not bad,” he says, and Scott grins at him. No kidding, it can’t be healthy for his internal organs to keep doing whatever it is they’re doing right now. A samba, maybe.

“Wait, how are we supposed to know?” Scott asks, suddenly all concerned, and Stiles snorts.

“You just... you just know,” he says, because if that was bad then—there’s just no way.

“You wanna do it again?” Scott asks. He never takes as much convincing as people seem to think during the reprimanding stage of things.

Stiles empties his lungs in a rough shake like upending a backpack, random bits catching and clinking and falling out. “Well we’re supposed to be practicing,” he says, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “So maybe, uh—maybe we should try for, y’know. Tongues.” His voice falls down a well somewhere around that last word. Scott’s tongue is a lot to think about. Whatever blood isn’t searing his face and his neck pours down into his dick. At least he’s sitting hunched over with his legs crossed, even if he’s gonna have to bolt himself into the bathroom and take care of that later.

“Okay,” Scott says, licking over his lips again like his tongue’s been summoned. Stiles swallows a giddy laugh. “What should I do with my hands?”

Stiles doesn’t say _whatever you want_ because there are things he’s not supposed to say that he says anyway and there are things he just won’t say because even if his lines go diagonal in places where they should be straight he knows you don’t use a bomb when a knife is called for. Love is only designed to have so much collateral. Stick that on a Hallmark card.

“What you just did was fine,” he says. “Good. Great. Maybe, uh—you could—my jaw? Or my neck. Up to you, man.” He’s desperately trying to think of places he touches himself while he _touches himself_ that are optional extras and not a freaking neon sign of all the things he doesn’t get to ask for. He’s getting greedy now. He can do it to himself later and pretend, and that’ll be enough.

Scott nods, and then reaches for him, and now that the first punch of shock is over Stiles manages to take the time to notice the little stuff: the way Scott’s shoulders square up as he leans in, like he’s sheltering Stiles from something; the way Scott’s lashes land on his cheeks as he shuts his eyes; how big Scott’s hands are on Stiles’ shoulders before they slide up to the sides of his throat.

Their lips slot together, more carefully this time, like pressing at a bruise. Their noses bump and Scott huffs, uses his hands to tilt Stiles’ head the other way, putting him where he wants and pulling a noise out of Stiles as he leans up and forward. Scott’s tongue brushes Stiles’ bottom lip, opening him, and his thumbs rub little circles on the hinges of Stiles’ jaw, opening him even wider.

_Unzip me_ , Stiles thinks, giving up on air to feel out the shape of Scott’s teeth. _Cut me open. Rip me apart. Find all the places with your name stitched into them. Look at me see me use me give me everything it’s not enough—_

More noises fall out of Stiles’ throat that he couldn’t stop if he wanted to, bricks dropping as a house gets pulled down. Both his hands are fisted tight in Scott’s shirt. He can hear his own irregular breathing filling in the empty places of Scott’s, his rabbiting heart going going going underneath it all. Scott does something with his teeth that makes Stiles’ dick jerk in his pants. Stiles sucks at Scott’s tongue once he figures out that’s a thing he can do - that it’s a thing he _likes_ \- and Scott’s fingers tighten on Stiles’ neck as he grunts into Stiles’ mouth.

They don’t so much pull apart this time as they do lean away just enough that their lips stop touching. They’re both up on their knees now, which would totally wreck Stiles’ plan of concealing his boner if they weren’t still too close to look down without someone getting a forehead to the nose.

“Wow,” Scott says, soft and wide-eye-awed and raw, because he’s the open one, the free one who gets to let stuff like that out of his ribcage and into the air where who the fuck knows what could happen. “That was—”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get cocky,” Stiles says, breathier than he wants to be. He owes it to them both to put the pin back in the grenade of whatever Scott might say next. Maybe he just can’t handle being reminded of what they are and what they’re not gonna be because Scott’s not like him. Reality is a piss poor substitute when you love your best friend in ways not covered by the warrantee. “Two kisses does not a ranking expert make.”

“It was good though, right? With the tongues? I didn’t slobber on you or anything?”

“No,” Stiles says, thinking about the slippery heat of Scott’s tongue parting his lips, the slide of it against him, _into_ him. “No you got it. Tens from the whole panel. Well, maybe nines. Gotta have something to shoot for.”

“Cool,” Scott says, tapping Stiles on the shoulder with a loose fist. He smiles. “See? Don’t worry. We’re gonna be great.”

“Yeah,” Stiles nods, smiling back, that communicable happiness that Scott gives off that he’s never been immune to, not since day one. “Yeah we’re golden.”

“Can we get up off the floor though?” Scott asks. “My knees are kind of hurting.”

Stiles waits for Scott to move before he flings himself off the floor and onto the bed, bouncing on the mattress as he crosses his legs again. Scott shakes his head and gives him a fond look, but he doesn’t act like he’s noticed the way Stiles is pitching a tent that could withstand a hurricane.

Scott sits next to him, hand planted on the sheets between them. Stiles looks down at it, eyes on Scott’s long fingers and the lines of tendons, the fragile veins that bundle together. He bites his lip and puts his hand over the top, fingers curled around Scott’s palm, and Scott squeezes, nudges their shoulders. Hands can mean a lot of things.

“You okay?” Scott asks, like any answer would be fine even though that’s not true at all. “You wanna stop?”

“No,” Stiles says, and thinks this is how addiction feels. “We’ve just started, dude, c’mon.” He looks up at Scott and winks. “How’re we gonna impress anyone if we don’t get past the beginners level?”

Scott huffs. “Alright, so what’s next?”

“Well,” Stiles says, swallowing, picturing Scott on top of him, hands grabbing at his back and shoulders, his ass. “Probably, uh—we should probably—” He’s floundering, out of prepared, declawed ideas. His mouth is still tingling and bruised-feeling and Scott’s just patiently waiting for him.

“How about we just kiss?” Scott says, a lifeline with just enough slack for a noose.

“Sure,” Stiles says, shrugs a shoulder. “Sounds good.”

He tenses up a little when Scott puts his free hand on him, but Scott rubs it over the back of his neck and it’s so much like the nervous tic he uses to calm himself down but it’s Scott doing it and so he’s kind of a pliant-but-electrified mess by the time Scott kisses him.

It’s soft, exploring, all trial and error and curiosity. Stiles keeps his eyes shut and licks Scott’s lower lip, pulls on it with his teeth because it makes Scott give up this _sound_ that almost gets Stiles to grind his palm against his dick. Scott turns the hand that Stiles is holding down on the bed (he’d sort forgotten it, along with the fact that he has limbs and other things that aren’t his dick and a mouth for Scott to kiss) and laces their fingers together. It’s honestly alarming how quickly Scott is picking up this stuff. Figures since Scott’s the kind of guy who focuses so much on other people it’d extend to ways to reduce them to really, really aroused masses of jelly. God, Stiles is gonna _loathe_ whoever gets this for real.

When they separate Scott plants a gentle kiss on the corner of Stiles’ mouth, a soft peck like a note from a burglar: _Sorry I took everything. I was careful._ His thumb sweeps over Stiles’ cheek and then he drops his hand into his lap, sits back. He’s smiling easy and happy and earnest from his bitten and spit-wet mouth, breathing hard but not in a wheezy, worrying way. He looks at Stiles like Stiles isn’t wired up and Scott’s not holding the detonator. At least he’s sweating and his eyes are sort of hazy, so it’s not just Stiles that’s—that’s forgetting it’s just for practice. At least Scott’s feeling something too, even if it’s not—

There’s a clunk from downstairs. The front door closing.

“My mom’s home,” Scott says, in a guilty-kid whisper that Stiles has heard a million times for just as many reasons.

“Dude, chill, we’re not doing anything wrong,” he says. It might be the most spectacular lie of omission of his life to date.

“Right,” Scott nods, looking at Stiles in that _way_ again. “So did you—”

“You should go see your mom,” he says. “I gotta use the bathroom anyway.” He makes a shooing motion until Scott rolls his eyes and hops off the bed. Stiles does the walking version of a sprint into the bathroom and shuts the door, collapses back against it. His knees don’t want to hold him up and his heart wants to be embedded in the far wall. He rubs his hands viciously over his face until everything feels sore and friction burned instead of just his lips. It’s probably too late to worry about Scott’s mom noticing that Scott looks dishevelled as hell. Maybe she’ll think they’ve just been wrestling or something. Jesus.

He drinks about a gallon of water from the tap and then heads downstairs, escapes by telling Scott’s mom that his dad expected him home for dinner but they lost track of time, promising Scott he’ll be online later or he’ll text him and he’ll see him at school tomorrow, yes yes he can’t stay and he’s fine to walk home, bye. He’s dizzy by the time the door of the house is closed behind him. At least his erection’s gone.

-|-

“Hey,” his dad says when Stiles tries to sneak through the living room. It’s possible his sneaking needs some work.

“Hey,” Stiles says, not slowing down. “Can’t talk, sorry. I uh—forgot about homework.”

“Everything okay?” his dad asks to his back as Stiles makes for the stairs.

“Yep,” he says over his shoulder. “Fine. Everything’s great.”

“You and Scott have a fight or something?” his dad asks just as Stiles is moving out of sight into the upstairs hallway.

“Not even close,” he yells down as he shuts his bedroom door and takes his frustrations out on the zipper of his pants, kicks them across the room and flops back on his bed. Of course now that he _can_ , he’s not sure he wants to jerk off at all. Which normally would be a huge red flag for him. A crimson tapestry.

It all drops on him then. He _kissed Scott. Multiple times._ He doesn’t know whether to dance or throw up. He settles for grabbing a pillow and shoving it over his face and groaning until his lungs burn with the need to breathe.

Just—even for him this was a colossally bad move. But Scott liked it, didn’t he? Liked Stiles kissing him and touching him and sucking on his tongue like it was a Tootsie Roll. He probably wouldn’t have gone for it if he’d known Stiles was sporting wood the whole time, thinking about grinding all over Scott and getting him hard – getting him _off_. That Stiles wants that all the time and that when Scott goes and puts that practice to use with some lucky person that’s not Stiles, Stiles is going to very quietly but intensely hate their guts while kicking little bits of his heart under the nearest piece of furniture. God. His acting is just not good enough to hide all that.

He gives up and sticks a hand in his shorts, leaves the pillow clamped against his face so he doesn’t have to muffle himself. His skin’s buzzing and his head’s full of all the soft-warm brushes against Scott’s skin and the smell of him up close and how his breathing stuttered when Stiles’ teeth scraped his lips, how his hands fit on Stiles’ neck or his jaw like they were supposed to be there. He pulls the pillowcase between his teeth, sucking air through the damp fabric, eyes squeezed shut and his hand tight around his dick, getting precome all over his fingers and the inside of his boxers.

But it’s that last kiss that he thinks about over and over, plays on mental repeat while he’s fucking up into his fist and groaning, arm tensed up and moving faster, rougher. That soft little touch of Scott’s mouth right at the end, careful and deliberate. The one that felt like it meant something – that it’s easiest to imagine meant something. As he falls over the edge Stiles’ toes curl up and his heels thump the bed, head snapping back, coming in hard clenches from his belly all over his fingers, and he _wishes_.

-|-

He expects... something, at school the next day. He doesn’t know what. The Spanish Inquisition, maybe. But he gets out of bed, wincing at the mess in his shorts he fell asleep without cleaning up, showers and stares at his reflection in the mirror while he brushes his teeth, all the while thinking _I kissed my best friend_ over and over like he can desensitise himself. He throws on a tee and a flannel shirt and yesterday’s jeans, shovels cereal into his mouth imagining the many ways Scott might tell him last night was a gigantic mistake wrapped in a fuck up rolled in ground glass. He’d do it in a very nice way, since he’s Scott and some things are immutable, but still. His breakfast sits in a solid lump at the bottom of his stomach and the ride to school feels like he’s going to his execution.

So when he gets to the front of the building and Scott grins at him and says hey like there’s nothing different, the moment so generic Stiles couldn’t pick it out of a lineup, it’s just that much more disorienting.

“You okay, man?” Scott asks, standing next to him as the bell rings and people get sucked into the building. “You didn’t stay up all night reading Wikipedia again did you?”

He blinks, staring at Scott. Seriously this is what Pleasantville feels like, he’s sure. “What? No. What? I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Scott says slowly, squinting at him. And because the universe isn’t punking Stiles enough this morning, Scott leans in and kisses him, there and gone like a bullet passing through.

Stiles swallows, remembers he has things like arms and a nervous system and a heart that’s punching _Scott-kiss Scott-kiss_ into his sternum. “Uh?”

“It’s okay, right?” Scott asks with a nervous little half-crescent smile that’s doing no favours for Stiles’ ability to resist hauling him in by the collar and inspecting his tonsils with his tongue. “I just—I figured, you know—” He shrugs. “Practice.”

“Practice,” Stiles repeats. They’re basically alone outside the building now. There are birds chirping and everything’s normal. Stiles is gonna lose his mind.

“I might’ve Googled some—some tips,” Scott says. “About stuff. Kinds of kissing. Ways to practice. Was it okay that I just did that?”

_Maybe we should try again to make sure._ “Sure,” he says, nodding. He slaps a grin onto his face like sloppy paint. “Good thinking, buddy. Way to use your nerdy prowess.”

“Good,” Scott says, grinning wide. He nods up the steps. “Well, c’mon we’re gonna be late and Harris’ll give us detention again.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, dazed, follows him inside, to their lockers, down the hall and into the classroom, sits down, doesn’t remember a thing about any of it once he’s there. He’s got the wrong textbook in front of him. Scott gives him a look and then slides his between them, bumps Stiles’ knee in a reassuring way that knocks Stiles’ stomach up and up.

There’s that familiar feeling, the one he gets in the moments between _this is gonna be great_ and _shit we’re in so much trouble_ , the swoop of realising that his exit plan isn’t gonna work. The feeling that yeah he should probably have come up with an exit plan.

-|-

It’s not even just that once, is the real problem.

Stiles doesn’t know if Scott broke a dam or something, but now along with all the hugging and the back slapping and the shoulder bumping, there’s more of those casual-as-anything little kisses. Almost daily. All in the name of practice.

He’s legitimately afraid he’s going to break his dick. Seriously, he has nightmares about it. He’s spent more on skin care cream to combat chafing that he is ever, ever going to admit to. Aloe vera is his soul mate now.

They kiss when they have to go separate ways for classes and they kiss when they see each other in the morning and when they go home and when they show up at each other’s houses. They kiss for absolutely no reason, so many tiny presses of lips and brief fluttering of their eyelids, so many times they step in close enough for him to smell Scott’s shampoo or notice the little patch of stubble he missed that Stiles can’t count them. They even do it without him having to think about it, he just turns and plants one on Scott’s stupidly soft mouth. It’s become a _habit_.

And then every day Stiles goes home and rubs himself raw thinking about it. He jerks off in the shower and in his bed and against his bedroom door and kneeling on the floor. He jerks off, in a particularly pathetic moment of no self-control, in the middle of his kitchen because he accidentally thought about Scott sucking him off against his locker while he was getting a glass of milk. He’s always thought he was kind of at the mercy of his libido, but now he’s gone from losing the occasional battle and rubbing one out in a bathroom stall to wearing his gym clothes under whatever normal stuff he wears to school so he can beg off watching Scott change in the locker room. It’s not a problem now, it’s a condition.

-|-

They’re at Stiles’ house, sitting at the kitchen table doing homework and working through all the junk food they can find in the cabinets (Stiles’ dad’s stash is not to be underestimated). Stiles has chips scattered over half his notes and gritty salt rubbing between his fingers. There’s a Red Vine hanging from Scott’s mouth while he frowns down at a math assignment. They left the TV on before moving in here but all Stiles can really hear is the little wet sound Scott’s mouth makes as he worries at the candy.

Scott looks up, which means he catches Stiles looking, but all he does is bite the end off the Red Vine and raise his eyebrows as he asks, “You need a break?”

Stiles startles enough to rattle his empty ice cream bowl alarmingly close to the edge of the table. “Huh?”

Scott nods down at Stiles’ notes. He hadn’t noticed he’d been doodling squiggles all over the place. When he tilts his head one of them looks kind of like—

He scribbles over the doodling. “Uh. Yeah, sure, I guess. You done?”

“Yeah, just this last problem,” Scott says. Stiles won’t offer to help him because Scott has this thing where he’s determined to work out the answers for himself, which is endearing but also confusing and inefficient. Then again Stiles’ idea of ‘showing his work’ has caused some teachers to put a lot of red ink question marks on his papers in the past, so it might be for the best.

He watches Scott frown and tap the fingers he’s not holding a pen with on the table, looking back and forth between the textbook and his paper. Scott shows way too much of what he’s thinking on his face, exposed to anyone who knows what they’re looking for. It scares Stiles shitless if he thinks about it too much, makes him imagine himself as one of those dudes in suits whose job it is to jump in front of bullets for politicians. Scott would make a _terrible_ politician. A good leader though probably, if he ever stops being shy and reserved as hell. Stiles could deal with wearing a suit. He’d probably be more in favour of going for the people with the guns before any bullet-catching was required though.

“You’re not allowed to go into politics,” he says.

“Okay,” Scott says, although maybe to something other than what Stiles just said, putting down his pen and smiling. “All done. Break time.” The light over the table empties a gallon or more of shadow into his dimples and across his cheekbones. Stiles swallows and makes himself busy wiping the salt and oily flavouring off his hands and onto his pants.

“Hey, you want a drink or something?” he asks, hopping out of his chair and walking-not-running across the room because Scott’s just smiling at him in soft light and Stiles has never been much of a responsible person to start with.

“Thanks,” Scott says. He gets up and Stiles turns away from the refrigerator just in time to watch Scott stretching onto his tiptoes with his arms reaching above and behind him and his shirt riding up, up, up until his belly and hips are just completely on display, and is Stiles _not_ supposed to think about where that trail of hair is going, really?

What’s that Greek myth about the guy cursed to stand in water that recedes whenever he tries to drink any of it?

He pops the tab and chugs half his soda before Scott walks over to take his. Their fingers brush and Stiles’ involuntary little cough makes soda bubbles sting in his nose.

“So what do you wanna do?” Scott asks after he takes a drink.

Stiles settles for shrugging and pretending his almost-empty soda can is super, super interesting. “Dunno. What d’you wanna do?”

Scott shrugs back. “More TV? Xbox?”

There’s a feeling in Stiles’ stomach that he thinks is probably what acid reflux is like. “If you want.”

Scott looks at him, pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. When he lets it go it changes from pinched-white to pink to almost red. “That what you wanna do?”

Stiles snorts. “Dude, I asked you first.”

“I guess we could—we could practice some more,” Scott says, like he doesn’t care, like his cheeks aren’t staining with colour. The over-energised sour buzzing in Stiles’ belly spills out everywhere in a cold rush that makes his fingers slippery on the soda can.

“If you want,” he says, voice not hiding anything because his throat’s too dry and he’s out of soda now but he puts the can to his lips anyway. It’s that or focus on how it’s actually pretty dark in here and Scott’s eyes look black. There’s a severe shortage of air in the room or possibly everywhere. Sweat pricks him between the shoulders.

“Yeah,” he says. “Probably a good idea, right? Don’t wanna get rusty. Or. Yeah.”

“Right,” Scott nods, licking his lips. “Uh, do you want to do it here or?”

Stiles should be able to trust his knees to be more stable than this. “Nah, we should—” he thinks _upstairs_ but then thinks _bed_ so he points into the living room in the general direction of the couch. Scott nods, then leans in and gives Stiles one of the quick kisses he’s gotten used to but that still make his toes curl up, before he turns and heads for the other room. Stiles puts his empty soda can on the counter, then stops it rolling onto the floor when he knocks it over.

Scott’s waiting for him on the couch, fingers tapping on his knees. The TV’s playing an uninformative set of end credits, bland music made for people to shuffle out of movie theatres to while holding popcorn buckets playing quietly. He drops into the seat and turns himself so he’s facing Scott, one hand rubbing along the top of the couch’s back.

“Been doing any more Googling?” he asks, and Scott looks confused before he huffs and shakes his head.

“No. I think it’s one of those things you just have to _do_ ,” he says. “After a while the—the stuff online gets kind of...” He shrugs.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Be wary of the internet.” He can’t stop licking his lips. “So, uh... how did you...” He waves a hand between them. The nerves are actually worse now that he knows what’s coming, waiting for the _tug_ when a break resets.

“Like this?” Scott asks, carefully-so-carefully leaning in, hand on Stiles’ forearm. There’s a whole infinity of space between Stiles swallowing and wetting his lips, between Scott’s thumb tracing the vein on the inside of his arm and the way his nose brushes Stiles’ cheek before their mouths slip together.

They both adjust automatically now. Stiles knows which way Scott will lean and Scott knows that Stiles will let his breath out through his nose in a shudder when he opens Stiles’ mouth wider with his tongue. Stiles knows Scott always closes his eyes first, and so he feels safer closing his own. Scott knows the fingertips he slides up the side of Stiles’ throat will make him groan.

Scott’s legs bump his as they both drop their feet to the floor, pressing in closer. Stiles is leaning back against the arm of the couch while Scott presses in, caging him, one hand on Stiles’ jaw and the other pushing his shirt sleeve up his arm, fingers wrapping around his bicep. Stiles has both hands on Scott’s sides, his body warm through his shirt, because it’s the safest place he can think of while also not being able to stop himself from touching. Where can a thief put his hands that he won’t be tempted to steal something?

His lips buzz, feeling swollen, sensitive when Scott uses his teeth. His face has that sunburned feeling again, heartbeat tapping at his cheeks. He licks gently into Scott’s mouth and takes handfuls of his shirt, fabric pinched tight between his fingers. Scott tips them out of the kiss to lean his forehead against Stiles’, breathing hard and shaky, clutching back at Stiles just as hard.

Stiles forces his eyes open even though he doesn’t think they’ve ever been this heavy, and even the little bit of light from the lamp and the TV is too much. Scott’s blurry but his eyes are lidded and his mouth is open, breath fanning out against Stiles’ face.

“We’re—” Scott starts, and fuck, his _voice_ , like he’s been doing more than kissing. More than pretending to be _really_ kissing. “We’re getting better.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, huffing out a laugh with basically no sound to it. “Told you this’d be worth it.”

“Yeah, you’re—yeah,” Scott says, swallowing with a little click. He drops his hands to Stiles’ shoulders and squeezes a little, pressure that makes Stiles nearly slump right into him. “You wanna keep going?”

Stiles has no idea how long they were kissing, not even vaguely. A glance over at the TV only tells him they beat the credits on that unnamed movie, commercials playing hyper-cheerful on low volume now. His dad’s not home, which means it hasn’t been, like, five hours. God, he’d probably come in his pants if he tried to kiss Scott for that long. That or he’d die. His only hope would be if Scott got so winded he had an asthma attack.

“Always need more practice, right?” Stiles says, shrugging. Which just reminds him of where Scott’s hands are – about his strong fingers and his wide palms and how Scott probably jerks off even if they’ve never talked about it.

“Okay,” Scott nods, smoothing his hands to the edge of Stiles’ collar, to the muscle where his shoulders become his arms and then back again, thumbs brushing his neck at the place Stiles knows his pulse is jumping. It’s probably meant to be comforting – and it is. It’s just a lot of other things over the top of that. “You should shuffle towards me. I don’t wanna squash you or whatever.”

“Right,” Stiles says, scooting along the couch. Because he doesn’t want to get squashed. Because Scott doesn’t wanna pin him against the couch arm while they make out. Obviously.

He’s a little meaner with the next kiss, snapping at Scott’s lips and driving him back until there’s no more room to slide across, thinking _I should shuffle towards you_ with a gleeful little hurt in his chest, the anger like a box of matches he never really lets himself play with. Scott gets with the game faster than Stiles would’ve guessed, moaning like a question and gripping Stiles’ arms, pushing into the contact until Stiles’ lips are stinging. Their teeth clack once, twice, a noise like slate-on-slate, and they pull apart.

“Shit,” Scott says, panting. “The hell, man?”

“Figured we could try it,” Stiles says, not moving back enough to give Scott the space to sit upright, looking at him slouched against the cushion, red-faced with his hair messed up, probably as flattened at the back as it is stuck out on the sides. He smirks and thinks _I did that_ like an arsonist looking at a burning building. “You backing down?”

Scott frowns, full of that instinct he has for when Stiles is okay and when he isn’t. Not exactly foolproof though is it? Stiles can’t remember the last time he felt okay. He’s asking Scott to pick a needle out of haystack made of needles. It’s not fair. It doesn’t bother him like it should because why the fuck can’t they just _do this_.

Scott’s got just enough time to say, “No, I’m not—” before Stiles brings them together again. It’s wet and hot and would probably be dirty as hell if one of them wasn’t lying and the other wasn’t insisting on letting him get away with it all the time. Stiles puts his hands in Scott’s hair and Scott bites him harder than he has before, hard-blunt teeth and the taste of copper that Stiles chases along Scott’s tongue. His breathing is raspy, thin, and he’s sweating in pinpoints at the small of his back and the hollows of his knees. His dick is hard and straining at his pants, the least complicated thing there is just now.

It feels like a fight. It feels like everything Stiles wants and nothing he’s actually getting. His fingers twist the collar of Scott’s shirt out of shape and his mouth _hurts_ now, but if he’s training Scott up for somebody else then Scott should at least have to remember this like the only scar Stiles is brave enough to leave.

He loses it though, the bitterness gnawing through his guts and the urge to hit something that’s making his fingers curl up tight. He loses it all into the stupidly gentle, forgiving, accepting, coaxing way Scott swipes at the sting in his bitten lower lip and the way he passes along Stiles’ mouth with soft touches like he’s putting in stitches. His hands are on Stiles’ back and Stiles doesn’t know how they got there. He doesn’t know how they got to any of this, except for how he does and wishes so badly that he didn’t. Everything falls apart eventually, but it’s a lot less waiting to just break them yourself.

“Sorry,” he says, slurred, miserable against Scott’s cheek. He kisses there too, close-mouthed and careful. He’s never kissed Scott’s cheek before.

“S’okay,” Scott murmurs, and they’re just hugging now, Scott’s hands pulling him down and his arms around Stiles’ middle, Stiles awkwardly grasping Scott’s sides because Scott’s back is flush with the couch arm. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” He keeps saying it, fills the room with it while Stiles hides his face in Scott’s neck.

Scott lets him up when he decides he can’t sit still anymore. He walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge, changes his mind and shuts it again, walks back to the couch where Scott’s standing up and looking lost.

“Can we, uh. Can we pretend I didn’t freak out just now?” he asks, apparently sounding so pathetic that Scott just frowns and nods, asks if he’s okay and then accepts the answer Stiles gives that he has to know is bullshit.

They sit back on the couch and pretend it’s not cratered with how they just shoved each other around, shoulders not touching in a way that says they’re Not Touching. After ten or twenty minutes of watching what Stiles thinks is meant to be a rip-off of The Bachelor but with more inbred contestants and yelling, Scott lets out a nervous-awkward laugh that balloons out into the silence, turns into both of them laughing for no reason except that it’s the only thing they can do, isn’t it, when everything is this messed up and ridiculous?

“What the hell is this show, dude?” Scott asks, snorting, and Stiles is bent double, shaking his head.

“I have no idea,” he says, and Scott presses his face into Stiles’ shoulder, shoulders shaking. “God, okay. You want to just play a game or something?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, sighing, rubbing his hands over his face. Stiles looks at him and starts laughing again. “What?”

“Your hair,” Stiles says, trying to hold in a grin. “It’s kinda—” he puts his hands by his head and makes a sticky-uppy gesture.

“Your fault, man,” Scott says, shoving him, trying to get his fingers into Stiles’ ribs. Stiles squeaks a laugh and flings himself the other way, nearly falls off the couch.

“Shit, careful,” he says, hand on his chest like he’s scared his heart’s gonna give out. “We’re not allowed to break any more lamps, remember? That judgey guy behind the register at Target knows our names.”

Scott rolls his eyes, throws Stiles a controller. It’s so normal it’s abnormal. Stiles pays more attention to the screen while kicking Scott’s ass all over Rainbow Road than he ever has in his life.

When Scott goes home, they hug and then they kiss at the door, because they just do. Because they’re them. It almost very nearly doesn’t hurt at all.

-|-

By the time it’s been two whole weeks Stiles has given up on anyone throwing them so much as a backwards glance about it. Maybe it’s ‘cause they’re both nobodies anyway so far as the high school social ladder is concerned. Hell they might as well be buried _under_ the ladder. But literally not one person seems to give a rat’s ass that they’ve started acting like they’ve been married for twenty years every time they get near each other or have to be separated for more than a minute.

“I don’t get what you’re complaining about,” Scott says, sitting on the bench where they always freaking sit during lacrosse practice, picking at a fraying thread in his glove. He’s pulled the other one off and it’s hanging from between his teeth, lips wrapping around the finger and then pulling back to talk, rubbed more pink every time. It’s distracting. “You want people to hassle us?”

“Of course not,” he says, hand going to the back of his head, scratching his nails over his scalp. “But you don’t think it’s weird? It’s like throwing a plucked chicken into a piranha tank when anyone gets together around here and yet here we are and nobody even looks at us?”

“But we’re not together,” Scott says, kind of mumbling while still fiddling with his glove, looking at it with so much focus he’s gonna burn a hole in it. The dangling thread isn’t even there anymore. They never actually play outside of practice. Why is he bothering being obsessive about his gear. Stiles isn’t sure he’s even sweated in his.

“I know that,” Stiles says, being so careful to keep any bitterness out of it that he ends up gritting his teeth. “But _they_ don’t, do they? God, for all they know we’re—” he can feel it then, the mistake of where he’s going, but like Wile E Coyote after he runs out past the edge of the cliff, there’s nothing he can do except peddle in the air and fall, “—madly in love with each other.” Fucking ow. He rubs his chest.

Scott drops the glove out of his mouth and into his lap, looks at Stiles and then out at the field. He sighs. “I don’t know, dude,” he says, frowning. “Maybe they don’t think we are. Or maybe they just don’t care.”

“Well they should,” he sniffs, and Scott snorts, raises an eyebrow at him. “Hey, we’re both total catches. We’re like—yeah okay whatever.”

Scott smiles, shakes his head. He hops off the bench when Coach yells at him to come and at least try to make a shot. He leans down and Stiles leans up and they kiss, soft and quick, all reflex and pointless feelings, and Scott jogs out onto the field. Stiles watches Scott’s ass and fucking hates his life with a righteous fury.

“I hate my life,” he says once Scott’s out of earshot. He thumps the bench with his heel. Scott gets the ball in the net and turns to beam at him, and Stiles’ heart does a dance like it’s mocking him. He wouldn’t blame it. He puts both thumbs up and grins, mouths _good job, buddy_ and rolls his eyes epically at himself once Scott’s turned away.

“Stilinski!” Coach yells. “You’re up!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs, pulling his gloves on and grabbing his stick off the bench behind him. Scott puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder as he passes and they swap another kiss that lands mostly on Stiles’ cheek. Stiles would like to think he dreads it but he doesn’t. He wants to believe the effect’s worn off but it hasn’t. How long has been thinking like that about Scott anyway?

He misses the shot. And the next one. Scott kisses him just the same. Of course he does.

There’s a weak moment where Stiles gets so stuck aboard one train of thought that he gets up in the middle of lunch, walks over to Danny where he’s (thankfully) sitting on his own and drops into the opposite chair.

“Hey, Danny,” he drawls. “Danno. Dan, Dan, the man with the plan.”

Danny shakes his head. “Oh my god.”

“So listen, I need to ask you something.”

“How are you, Danny?” Danny mutters in a frankly insultingly high-pitched and crappy imitation voice. “I’m fine, Stiles, thanks for asking. How are you? Oh y’know, just busy, being annoying.”

“You done?” he asks flatly.

“You still here?” Danny asks, flatter.

“Yeah, so when guys kiss is there, like, a way of telling what it means? If there’s more there? Like is there, I don’t know, a secret gay handshake, but with mouths?”

Danny stares. He stares some more. “A secret gay—okay, you know what? Don’t ever talk to me.” He puts his fork on his plate, picks up his tray and leaves.

“I love our talks, Danny!” Stiles says over his shoulder.

“Get lost, Stiles,” winds through the cafeteria noise.

“What was that about?” Scott asks when Stiles slumps bodily back into his seat.

“Absolutely nothing,” Stiles says, prodding his now cold and depressing tater tots. He kicks Scott’s foot under the table and Scott snorts, kicks back. Stiles smiles, points at Scott’s tray. “Hey, you gonna eat your pudding cup?”

-|-

As distractions from this huge shit sandwich he’s made for himself go, the senior’s secret-everyone-knows-about party isn’t the worst he could’ve thought of.

“We never get invited to those,” Scott says, frowning as he shuts his locker. He’s resigned to perpetual nerdhood, it’s sad. “We’re underage. And freshmen. And super not popular. They change the house it’s at every time and only tell other seniors when it is. How did you even find out about it?”

Stiles shrugs. “Well, this time I was invited, obviously. Yay for clerical errors and the poor judgement of high schoolers.”

“Drew Prentiss doesn’t even know who you are.”

“Well, I filled his locker with shaving foam last year because he wouldn’t invite us, so depending on if he _knows_ I—”

“Because your dad’s the Sheriff. He didn’t invite you this time either, did he,” Scott says, and really he could at least pretend there’s a question mark in there.

“Okay no,” Stiles shrugs. “But I was standing behind the guy he was inviting, and technically there’s no law that says—”

“You really want us to crash Drew Prentiss’ party?” Scott says, eyebrows doing the thing Stiles has more often seen his dad’s do, and now he’s building up to a Tone.

“Come on,” Stiles whines. He might stomp a little. “You know how many people show up to those things? Basically the entire school except us, dude. Nobody’s gonna notice two more guys. Free booze? Music? Social climbing? Hey, maybe even a chance to utilise our new mad kissing skills.” Now he wants to erase all the images of Scott drunk at a party making out with some rando that are suddenly cropping up behind his eyes, like those really disturbing pop-ups you only get on a certain flavour of porn site.

Scott frowns, but it’s the frown with the biting of his lip that comes before he admits Stiles is full of awesome plans. “You really wanna go?” Scott asks, and Stiles grins, pulls Scott into a hug, sways him and back and forth.

“It’s gonna be awesome,” he says into Scott’s hair. When they pull away he squeezes Scott’s upper arms, gives him a winning smile. “Trust me.”

“Right,” Scott says. He points a finger at Stiles. “I’m not getting wasted. Or high. My mom’ll kill me and then she’ll ground me and then she’ll give me those pamphlets about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Then she’ll tell me I’ve disappointed her and I’ll cry.”

Stiles smirks. “You’d be such a goofy drunk. Think of the entertainment value for me. I’ll totally hold your hair if you have to barf though, you know I will. I’m here for you.”

Scott scoffs. “Fine,” he says. “But you know someone always calls the cops on Drew’s parties, and if your dad shows up with a bunch of deputies to shut the whole thing down like they did last year, then I’m gonna bail on you.”

“First of all, you’d never bail on me, there are no parachutes in this friendship,” Stiles says. “But if my dad shows up I’m trading you in for immunity.”

“You tried that when we broke Mrs Walcott’s window. It didn’t work at all.”

“Mrs Walcott should’ve given me my frisbee back when she had the chance,” Stiles says. He’s pretty much planning to be sour about that forever.

Scott groans, runs his hands through his hair. Stiles wants to reach out and ruffle it some more. If he waits it out until the bell rings there’ll be a kiss. “What time is the party?”

-|-

The party is, in a word, _awesome_. Stiles is wandering around the house for ten minutes before someone walks past him drunk-laughing and missing an eyebrow, carrying a lawn gnome under their arm.

“Didn’t I tell you this would be fun?” he screams in Scott’s ear to be heard over the music.

“Stop screaming,” Scott screams back. They’re walking close enough together that the sides of their shoes keep scraping. “Where did you say the drinks were?”

Stiles grabs him by the hand and pulls him into the kitchen through the press of dancing, yelling, drinking and smoking people who Stiles swears aren’t this pillar-esque in the school halls during daylight hours. Their sweaty palms slip against each other until Scott gets a grip by twining their fingers. Stiles is irrationally pleased people who don’t know he exists have now seen him holding Scott’s hand.

They bulldoze their way to the counter with all the bottles and plastic cups, and Stiles pours them both something that could be pink or could be clear (he can’t tell because of the shitty lighting) and could be very strong, very cheap vodka or could be lighter fluid (he can’t tell because it’s dissolved his taste buds).

Scott takes an admirably large gulp and then ends up spluttering. Stiles slaps his back and rubs between his shoulders, generally feeling him up until Scott croaks at him and uses Stiles’ arm to pull himself upright.

“Good, right?” Stiles says over the lip of his cup. Scott coughs again and flips him off. Stiles laughs around his careful swallow of maybe-lighter-fluid. Whatever it is, it burns going down and then makes him feel warm all over and a little dizzy. The music thumps in his chest and pushes against the soles of his feet. He waggles his eyebrows. “C’mon, Scotty, let’s go dance.”

There’s not so much a dance floor as there is an area of the house from the living room to the start of the kitchen and branching out into the hallway by the front door, a space where people are either throwing themselves around or grinding up against one another with no in between. All the furniture Stiles spots has been pushed flush with the walls and the chairs and couches are covered in coats or people who look like stringless puppets or both. There are maybe two people fucking under some coats on a sofa in the main hallway, but he can’t get a good enough look to be sure.

Scott’s a better dancer than him by simple virtue of the fact that he doesn’t elbow anyone in the stomach. He does spill his drink on a girl who totally fails at being mad once she’s face-to-face with Scott and his earnest apology eyes. One day Scott will harness his power and take over if not the world, at least a moderately-sized country. Or at least get himself laid. Stiles frowns at the girl’s back and moves in a circle until he’s standing directly in front of Scott, blocking the rest of the party out. Suits and bullets and politicians.

They dance around like they used to in their rooms when they were kids, crappy music blaring only barely louder than the crowd of people jammed into the house. Scott grins and bops his head and Stiles generally flings his limbs around like he’s daring them to stay attached, grin hurting his face and his drink sloshing out over his fingers. The air’s hot and soupy and Stiles is lightheaded, giddy like he’s stayed awake for two days straight.

He puts his hands on Scott’s waist and staples an exaggerated face over the one he doesn’t want to wear. He pushes against Scott’s chest, kicks his legs between Scott’s, rubs them together just enough to make him buzz all over but not enough that Scott looks weirded out. It’s a risk, sure, but there are too many people bumping his back and the music’s drowning out everything in his head and Scott’s so warm under his hands and pretty under the cheap flashing disco lights, dimpled smile and bright eyes, mop of hair sticking to his forehead and curling sweaty around his ears, shirt clinging to his chest and shoulders.

There’s a white-hot looped wire of an impulse somewhere in Stiles that’s telling him he could say anything and just let the roar carry it away, like shouting at the ocean. He could say anything he wanted and it wouldn’t mean a thing.

Scott leans in when Stiles does so Stiles can say, “I’m gonna go find the bathroom,” up against his ear. Scott nods and goes back to dancing, and Stiles stumbles off. He can’t tell if whatever he’s been drinking is gonna make him puke, or if it’s other stuff he had less choice about swallowing. He hands his empty cup to a guy he passes who doesn’t seem aware that he’s holding it as he walks away.

The bathroom is behind the third door he tries. He shuts it heavily and the sudden almost-quiet of the party being blocked out behind him makes his breathing feel too hard and his pulse way too loud. While he’s pissing he pulls his damp shirt away from his back and then tugs at his collar, wincing at the gross peel of the fabric from his skin. He didn’t notice he’d been sweating this much, wonders how Scott manages with that much hair, wonders if it’d slick back when Stiles ran his hands through it. He splashes water on his face and digs his fingertips into his eye sockets, his cheeks, the back of his neck, like pulling off a mask that’s not there.

A wall of noise hits him like a slap when he opens the door. The air feels even thicker, the sour smell of too many people and not enough ventilation climbing into his nose. Scott’s not where Stiles left him, which is... worrying. He’s sure that’s worry. He’s not gonna poke at it too much though, in case it bites him. His eyes flick to the people on and under the coats, the ones moving in the sea of bodies. He pictures Scott as something bright and new and open as a room with no doors for anyone to peer into or trample through, and thinks how he really didn’t need to piss that badly, did he, no he fucking didn’t.

Either the crowd’s gotten bigger or drunker or both because it’s a lot harder to move through now. Maybe he’s just shoving too hard and too blunt, pinballing between them. He thinks about asking if anyone’s seen Scott and then remembers nobody here knows who the fuck either of them are. He imagines opening doors one by one and finding something he doesn’t want to find. He imagines showing up at school on Monday and Scott having hickeys and a lopsided smile. His fingers leave marks on his palms that are red enough to show even in the gloomy light. He asks someone about a guy, about yay tall, brown skin, floppy hair, red tee, kind of bookish? and pockets his blunt out of pure spite when the guy’s too fucked up to tell him anything.

He’s moving between people like an ant between a load of boots—

The music bangs off the inside of his skull, throbs behind his eyes—

There’s a burning in his stomach that’s getting worse and he’s checked the kitchen and the living room and _everywhere_ except upstairs, which is full of people on beds and pressed against walls and Scott’s—

Scott’s out on the patio.

Stiles sees him between the slow trickle of bodies coming and going for drinks, sees him through the windows that leads outside, sees him with his face tipped up to the sky, and honestly he nearly falls down he’s that relieved. He’s aware he’s pathetic but it’s in the privacy of his own neediness so what does it matter.

“Dude,” he says, fresh air stinging it’s so cold compared to in the house, “are you trying to give me a heart attack? I know you weren’t sick during Stranger Danger, what the hell.”

“Sorry,” Scott says, sounding like he means it because Scott is biologically incapable of faking apologies. “I felt kind of dizzy and I wanted some air. Didn’t think I’d been out here that long.” He’s got his hands in his pockets and his shoulders are up too high.

Stiles tries to think how long it’s been since they met up without kissing and decides this whole moment can go fuck itself. Scott makes a tiny surprised noise when Stiles kisses him, but he leans into it and his hand presses on Stiles’ side until Stiles leans away.

There, he’s achieved something.

“Oh hey,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “I come bearing gifts of frankincense and wacky backy.”

Scott stares at the cigarette between Stiles’ fingers, then does a quick look around like there’s cops in the rosebushes. “Where did you get that?” He even whispers the question. Stiles could kiss him again just for being so fucking Scott all the time.

“Some guy,” Stiles shrugs. “Didn’t get his name.” He rocks on his heels. “Hah, actually he didn’t talk to me at all. How’s that for efficiency?”

Scott’s staring at him now. “You stole a guy’s joint?”

“Well he left it lying around, sticking right out of his back pocket. What was I supposed to do, just leave it there? I mean the guy was wearing a polo shirt, so he was obviously an asshole.”

“Dude, I said I wasn’t getting high,” Scott says. He looks like he wants to cross his arms. He’s sort of adorably grumpy. Stiles probably shouldn’t drink any more.

“Aw, Scott, my man, my prince, my pride and joy,” he says, rubbing Scott’s shoulders. “Loosen up, huh? What’s the worst that could happen?”

Scott looks at him like _really?_ “My asthma might kill me before my mom does.”

Stiles waves a hand. “Nobody dies from weed, that’s an urban myth. Besides, as if I’d put you in danger? Knowingly? Uh. Real danger I mean?” He gets a really terrible, great idea. “Hey, how ‘bout I do it and then we, y’know. We share.”

“Share?”

“I’ll do the smoking, and then you just stand there and lemme—” he swallows, dry-mouthed, back of his throat tasting like alcohol without the good parts, waves a hand between them. “We share. Through, uh, mouth-to-mouth contact.”

“I know what shotgunning is, Stiles,” Scott says, the eyeroll packed neatly into the tone.

“Then you know it’s like, next gen kissing practice, bro, c’mon.”

“Who am I supposed to be practicing shotgunning for?”

Stiles waves a hand. “What, do I suddenly have all the answers? Look, do you want to or not? You’re not really gonna make me smoke this thing all by myself are you? I might die.”

Scott bites his lip. Stiles hides a victory fist pump by tapping his hand on his leg.

“How are you gonna light it?” Scott asks.

Stiles snaps his fingers. “Right. Man need fire. Uh. Hang on – and don’t go anywhere. Really, don’t.”

He ducks back into the house, finds a reasonably large group of people with expensive-looking shoes who all smell of weed, and asks for a light. He gets four lighters and a matchbook stuck in his face, snatches one of the lighters and dashes back outside. Honestly anyone who says drug laws work is full of shit.

“Tada,” he says, waggling the lighter. “And for my next trick, I shall make you very stoned.” He lights the blunt, tries to remember the details of the video he watched about this once, featuring a guy even whiter than him with gross-looking dreadlocks, and pulls the smoke into his lungs.

“Wait, hang on,” Scott says, and then reaches behind him and pulls his shirt over his head by the collar.

It’s very difficult to choke on your breath when you’re holding it and your lungs are full of smoke, but that doesn’t stop Stiles even a tiny bit. He coughs and coughs and his eyes are watering and smoke comes out his nose and his lips are tingling and Scott has really nice nipples, wow.

“The fuck,” he says, sounding like he’s been gargling battery acid.

“I don’t wanna go home smelling like pot; my mom does the laundry on weekends,” Scott says, looking around for somewhere to put his shirt before he shoves it in his back pocket. He shrugs, arms dropping against his sides, looking at Stiles and just _waiting_ for him. His skin is really—and his chest—with the collarbones—yeah. Stiles’ head is kind of swimming.

“Uh. Right. Okay,” he says, blows out his breath and takes another drag. His pulse is _ticking_.

Scott licks his lips when Stiles takes a step closer. Stiles can feel his skin in a weird and new sort of way. Scott’s eyes are so bright and his mouth looks so wet, open.

“Stiles,” Scott says right as they touch and Stiles lets the bittery smoke out of his mouth and strains his eyes down to watch Scott suck it in and he can feel Scott’s chest expanding right up against him, ribs like opening hands and his neck tensing around his Adam’s apple. It’s maybe the hottest thing Stiles has ever seen in person or anywhere else.

He watches while Scott blinks, long lashes and wide pupils, mouth an ‘O’ that makes Stiles really really want to know what it’d be like to go down on Scott out here with the music at his back and the moon out above them, wants to know what noises Scott’d make while Stiles got him wet. The thing that really stops him is the thought that none of the people in that house deserve to see it, to see Scott like that. Not that Stiles wouldn’t be into it if Scott was. If Scott wanted to get sucked off in public Stiles would kneel in a fucking diner at rush hour. God he’s hard.

Scott turns his head and blows smoke away from them, licks his lips. Licks them again. He grins at Stiles.

“Think I’m good,” he says, and Stiles wonders if anything has ever been that understated. It makes him laugh until he’s bent over and his eyes are full of tears. Weed is weird and life is weird but it’s all so _good_.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, still laughing. “Want another go?” Scott nods, Stiles already putting the joint between his lips.

This time it’s a kiss for a few seconds before it’s anything else. Holding his breath and feeling the weed working makes Stiles lightheaded and kind of itchy, but Scott’s tongue is like fire and then he’s pulling the smoke out of Stiles and the fact of watching it slip down into Scott’s throat makes Stiles moan, uncaring, wanting.

“Give it back,” he says quick and low, kissing Scott again. He puts his hands on Scott’s sides, strokes them up to his ribs and his armpits and rubs them back down, around to his back, and Scott’s so _warm_ it’s impossible to stop touching him but why would Stiles want that anyway? Scott’s hands are cradling his face as the smoke floods him and Scott groans when Stiles holds his breath and sucks Scott’s bottom lip into his mouth, worries at it with his teeth.

They lose the smoke in all the kissing. Their mouths slide slick and clumsy. Stiles gets spit on his cheek and Scott’s hands are on his hips. Scott pulls at Stiles’ tongue and Stiles whines, hips jerking forwards and that’s—Scott’s dick is thick and hard and nudging him and Stiles makes another noise like he’s hurting and worms his hand down between them, palms it, rubs it. Scott breaks the kiss to grunt and it’s such a good sound. Scott buries his face in Stiles’ neck, panting wet against his skin.

“Stiles,” Scott says, helpless, bucking into Stiles’ hand and then away from it.

“S’okay,” Stiles slurs, scrapes his teeth against Scott’s neck and feels him shiver. “I want it.” He puts his free hand on Scott’s back, hugs him close and rubs his hand over Scott’s dick harder, fingers finding the shape of the head and digging in. He doesn’t even know when he dropped the joint. Scott slumps hard against him, sends them both staggering backwards.

“Fuck,” Scott groans. “God, Stiles.” He grips Stiles’ arms tight enough there’ll probably be bruises. Fuck, Stiles hopes there’ll be bruises. He pushes upright and stands away. He looks _broken_ , mouth all swollen, sweat in the dip between his collarbones, eyes hazy and so dark they might as well be black.

Goosebumps rise along Stiles’ arms, the hairs standing upright. Something’s reaching up out of the deepest place of him and pulling him down, making him heavy and warping him. He thinks it’s fear. Fear that he’s just fucked up so much he won’t be able to glue the pieces back together. Scott’s looking at him and not saying anything.

“Scott,” Stiles says, because it’s the first solid thing. “Scott I’m—”

“Don’t,” Scott says, stepping closer. “Don’t say sorry. God, don’t be sorry, please? Please, Stiles?”

“I’ll be—okay,” he says, stuck in mid-air. “What do you want me to—”

Scott kisses him, different from any of all the kisses Stiles can’t count or even remember, sharp and serious and final, stamping a period into the end of a sentence.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says again, hands on Stiles’ neck like that first time when Stiles just wanted something and didn’t care if he had to lie through his teeth to get it. There’s no such thing as a bulletproof lie, is there? Not if someone knows you.

“I’m not,” he says, telling the total truth. Defiant. It’s terrifying, flays him open. His eyes are stinging. “I’m not sorry. About anything. None of it.”

Scott grins and the moonlight is _nothing_. “Good,” he says, kisses Stiles gently this time, no tongue or teeth, hands sliding up his throat. It’s the meet-up kiss, the _hey you’re here I see you I know you_ kiss. Stiles would leave and come back just to get it again if he thought his feet would carry him anywhere right now.

“Come home with me?” Scott asks, thumbs stroking Stiles’ cheeks, and Stiles nods, spans his hands out on Scott’s waist so he doesn’t fall over, sticks to nodding so he doesn’t say anything.

“Anywhere,” he says, because screw not saying anything. Truth is overrated, but so are lies, and with truth you don’t need to worry about the bullets. He can learn to give up a shield for this. “Let’s go. Let’s just go.”

-|-

There’s a bed. There’s a bed and Scott’s in it and Stiles is in it with him. Or, okay, he’s kneeling on the bed that Scott’s in but he’s looking at Scott laying back in his underwear with his dick really obviously tenting them. Semantics are not important here.

“What?” Scott asks, fidgeting his hips.

“You ever wish you could paint?” Stiles asks.

“What?” Scott says again, and Stiles waves a hand. Scott’s wearing black briefs. It makes Stiles want to put his teeth places.

“Forget it.” He pulls his shirt off, trying to shove away any potential body issues because Scott’s Scott and Stiles is himself and there’s a difference in muscle mass and the amount of wiry hair and moles and—

“Would you come here?” Scott asks, and Stiles doesn’t know what he was expecting if not the way Scott’s looking at him now. Really, he has more faith than that. Doubt is a slippery fucker.

Scott moans hot and really nice when Stiles rubs against him, sliding up the bed until he’s looking into Scott’s face. He kisses Scott’s neck, the line of his jaw, the soft underside of his chin. The places he’s never been but where the fences have been kicked over now, the no trespassing signs trampled into the ground.

“What’re we doing?” Scott asks on a moan into the top of Stiles’ shoulder while Stiles is busy trying to line their dicks up through their underwear.

He props himself up, looking at Scott again. “Uh. Pretty sure it’s called frottage.”

“Is that French?”

“What? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Look, I promise to check later if you just let me get on your dick.”

“That’s what I mean,” Scott says. “Are we like—this isn’t just another—”

“This is real,” Stiles says quickly. “Sorry, I should’ve—this isn’t for—ugh. Look, I’m your best friend and you’re my best friend and I also love you a whole lot and I’d like that to include getting to do this.” He rocks down and Scott chokes out a moan. “And more kissing. All of that. Preferably until we’re really, really old and gross, and to be honest right now I’m starting to hope for an afterlife.”

“Okay,” Scott whines, out of breath. “That sounds good. I’ll sign up for that.”

“Excellent,” Stiles sighs, all breathy relief as he grinds them together again, friction rocketing up his spine to the tight place between his shoulders, ass flexing while he slots Scott’s dick against his hip.

“We should be naked,” Scott says into his neck. “If we’re—I want to be naked.”

“Naked sounds awesome,” Stiles nods, squirming and knocking Scott as he pulls his shorts down. “Can I...” he waves at Scott’s and Scott nods, Adam’s apple bobbing. A little rush of what could be adrenaline or power goes through Stiles right down to his toes as he hooks his fingers in Scott’s waistband and pulls his briefs down his legs. Scott’s dick slaps against his belly and they both make a noise. “God, Scott,” he says, running his fingers up the underside, tracing veins to the head. “Look at you.”

Scott’s holding so still while Stiles touches him, plays with him, that he’s trembling everywhere, a rattle living under his skin while he alternates between grabbing Stiles’ thighs and the sheets by his sides. Stiles rubs his thumb over the slit of Scott’s dick until he gets a fat blurt of precome he can smear down and around the crown, grinning when Scott can’t stop from bucking up.

“Here,” Stiles says. “Your turn, like this.” He shoves his hands under Scott’s body and heaves until Scott rolls with him, pulls Stiles under him. “Not doing all the work,” he says, smirking and pushing up, dick nudging Scott’s belly.

“Think this is work?” Scott says, dropping his forehead to Stiles’. He does something with his hips that makes Stiles go cross-eyed. Stiles’ hands roam over Scott’s back, down to grab at his ass and drag them tighter against each other, hipbones knocking. He wriggles a couple of fingers between the cheeks of Scott’s ass and finds his hole, presses, and Scott whines, shakes through a rough thrust against Stiles that squeezes his lungs empty of air.

They lie pressed snug together, so close they’re one big point of contact from hips to chest, Scott’s legs between Stiles’, nudging him open. Scott’s hands frame Stiles’ face and he kisses him, Stiles groaning around his tongue when Scott rocks them, too close to really get any leverage but still numbingly perfect.

Every few dozen sloppy, skin hungry rolling movements, they swap again, like a game, trying not to fall over the edge of coming or off the bed and onto the floor. Stiles pins Scott under him with his hands on Scott’s shoulders and laughs when Scott makes a pleading-frustrated noise at not being able to move. All the time Stiles spent imagining what it’d be like to have sex and he never thought it’d be so much _fun_. Scott’s face turns into a grin when he locks eyes with Stiles, answering something Stiles didn’t even say out loud. Who needs words anyway?

Stiles’ hands thread through Scott’s hair and his legs bracket Scott’s waist, humping down against all that living, perfect heat. Scott groans and grunts and bites out little desperate sounds against Stiles’ neck and his chest, whatever’s in reach. Stiles can feel himself getting close, getting near the point where he won’t be able to stop himself. They can go again though, can’t they? Over and over. Stiles wants to _wreck_ Scott like this, do everything and anything.

His toes curl up, knees slip-sliding on the sheets, precome all over them both, probably stringing them together. His stomach turns over and he muffles a shout into Scott’s chest as he comes, messy and halfway up Scott’s belly. It all turns slick and hot and Scott bites the meat of Stiles’ shoulder as he loses it too, and it hurts but it just adds to everything, makes Stiles buck downward and leave another streak of jizz on Scott’s skin, shaking as he breathes through his nose.

There’s an overworked heat in his chest and belly and back, in the muscle of his ass and shoulders, and it’s been like three minutes but he’s starting to get hard again when he says, “Wait, wait,” gasping and pulling away.

“What?” Scott says, dazed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Just a sec,” Stiles says. He bends and reaches down, grimacing at the cool air on the combined mess all over him. He grabs his socks by the toes and pulls them off, throws them off the bed, then does the same with Scott’s. He folds back down on top of Scott’s chest. “There. Otherwise we’re those douchey guys in bad gay porn.”

“You watch a lot of gay porn?” Scott asks, sounding like he’s half asleep as Stiles ducks his head to kiss Scott’s neck, blur his smile into Scott’s skin.

“I watch a regular amount for someone who’s into a wide variety of things,” Stiles says, and Scott laughs above him, makes Stiles grin into the warm skin of his throat.

“A wide variety huh?” Scott mutters, hands stroking over Stiles’ shoulders, fingers sliding up to rub the muscle that runs into his neck, press at the bite mark. Stiles turns to putty.

He hums. “Yeah. I like lots of stuff.” He groans. “Are you massaging me? Is this a massage?”

“I just like touching you,” Scott says, palms rubbing over Stiles’ upper arms, down the dip of his spine, cupping his ass. Stiles kisses Scott’s chest below the space between his collar bones, nosing over him, licks Scott’s neck in a broad swipe of tongue because he’s high on post-orgasm brain chemicals and weed and he’s allowed to now.

“S’nice,” Stiles says, slowly rolling his hips down. He’s slid down and he’s rubbing against the mattress between Scott’s legs, dick slowly filling up, shivers passing through him.

Scott’s fingers pause on the nape of his neck, drawing little circles that send tingles down Stiles’ back. Stiles is sort of absently mouthing at Scott’s chest, sucking and licking. Scott’s skin tastes really good. When he pushes up, elbows digging into the bed either side of Scott’s ribs, he’s left a wide purple-red and spit-shiny mark in the middle of Scott’s sternum.

“Oops,” he says. It’s hot though. Like, really. Stiles wants to sign it.

“It’s okay,” Scott says, one hand dropping from squeezing Stiles’ shoulders to press his fingers against the bruise. Stiles groans, bites his lip and humps the mattress again, oversensitive, needy.

“Good,” Stiles says, “‘cause I’m not sorry. You told me not to be, so here I am, not being sorry.”

“Good,” Scott says back to him. He coaxes Stiles up with hands on his waist until they’re face-to-face.

It can’t be called a kiss because it’s not controlled enough, just a sloppy press of lips and tongue and noises swapped between them.

Scott frees Stiles’ lip to say, “You’re beautiful,” and Stiles swallows, slaps him on the arm in an ungainly kind of twitch.

“Fuck. You—shut up.”

Scott smiles, bites his lip mid-grin, and if there was enough blood in any parts of him above the waist Stiles is pretty sure his heart would’ve overgrown his ribs, bubbling and flooding out like that time they put a whole box of laundry soap in the machine to see what would happen.

“It’s true though,” Scott says, all _don’t argue with me_. He finds a tense nerve bundle or something between Stiles’ neck and shoulder and rubs over it hard, digs his fingers in. “You are.”

“Whatever you say,” Stiles blurts, “just don’t stop.” Should this be turning him on? Scott does that without trying. “God.”

Scott smiles and does as he’s told. Stiles humps the bed. He can feel Scott, half-hard against his stomach. The room smells of sex and sweat. Stiles drops his forehead against Scott’s collar bone and laps at his skin.

Their second round is him sprawled out underneath Scott, both their dicks in Scott’s hand and Stiles staring into Scott’s blown-wide expression as he brings them both off, quick-sharp jerks and twists of his sticky, gorgeous fingers. Stiles keeps trying to help or take over or just to _touch_ but Scott bats him away, distracts him with kissing and his thumb crooked so it nudges _just_ so over the head of Stiles’ dick and under the crown, makes him arch.

“Stiles,” Scott says around these big, billowy breaths, hand moving rougher, gripping tighter.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, whispering without meaning to. He looks down between them, watches them slide through Scott’s hand, feels all these sharp electric bursts go up to the base of his skull when their dicks rub just right, when Scott’s fingers go bump-bump-bump-bump against the ridge of the head. “Yeah do it, c’mon.”

Scott’s face screws up when he comes and it should look ridiculous and not hot or cute or anything that makes Stiles hurtle after him while Scott’s hand wrings them both through it, come pattering messily onto Stiles’ stomach. He rakes his nails down Scott’s back and Scott flops onto him, nearly winds him with a pointy elbow but Stiles is too busy with his head thrown back and his body bowing up, chasing the contact, the pressure, to care about that.

The shocky feeling wears off slowly, fading from the edges inward like the scene cut at the end of a cartoon, cue the music. He blinks his eyes open, lashes crinkling against Scott’s cheek. He swallows and he’s suddenly aware of how dry his throat is. Weak-limbed and rubbery all over, he arranges them so there’s room for his ribs to expand when he breathes, for Scott to keep touching him, hands smudging wet and tacky on his stomach like drawing in the condensation on a windowpane.

“So this is okay, right?” Stiles asks, while they’re both doing things that don’t involve looking at each other, because he’s distrustful of a lot of things but this thing he’s feeling most of all. What goes up... “Us doing this? _Being_ this?”

“S’what I wanted,” Scott says into the space between them. He huffs, and his fingers pause on Stiles’ skin. “I almost said something when you told me you wanted to practice kissing that first time. I thought you knew and you were just messing with me.”

Stiles rears back and taps Scott’s shoulder, gets his attention so Scott doesn’t miss the full force of his stare. Below his neck there’s this yawning space that goes on and on, deep and down forever. “Why didn’t you? God, I was so—do you know how much angsting you could’ve saved me? I almost—why the hell didn’t you say anything, dude?”

Scott shrugs against him, eyes looking over Stiles’ face. The light picks out his eyes, the shape of his nose, all the little _look here_ places. “Didn’t think you wanted to hear it,” he says, avoiding Stiles’ gaze, shrugging. “You were—I knew you weren’t telling me stuff – you’re really not that great at lying. I just didn’t—I didn’t think it was me you wanted to do this with.”

Stiles looks at him so unimpressed he almost sprains his whole face. “Well that’s the most incorrect you’ve ever been about anything, then. Put that up there with people thinking the world was flat.”

Scott runs his fingers down Stiles’ arm, catches his hand, eyes clicking up to Stiles’. “Worked out okay, didn’t it?” he asks, so tender-hearted Stiles can’t stand it.

“Well...” Stiles drawls, holds up his free hand and wobbles it back and forth.

“Jerk,” Scott says, butting his head kitten-light against Stiles’ temple. The look on his face says he can see Stiles scrabbling for the joke but that he’s gonna let him.

“Yep,” Stiles grins, popping the last letter. “You love me anyway though.”

“Every day since you peed on my sandcastle in preschool,” Scott says. Stiles snorts.

“I promise not to do that again,” he says. “When I get my learner’s permit we can go the beach and you can make all the sandcastles you want. I won’t pee on any of them.”

Scott hums, leaning half over him propped on one elbow, squeezing Stiles’ hand. “So generous.”

“Let it be known,” Stiles says quietly, smiling into the kiss when Scott lowers himself down.

-|-

They crowd together at the sink, wipe each other down with a washcloth, Stiles using it as a good excuse to touch Scott’s junk some more, fondling his balls and playing with his dick, learning the feel of it soft in his hand. He thumbs over the bruise on Scott’s chest that’s come up livid pink and Scott’s hand fits gently to the back of his head when he ducks in to kiss it.

They sneak into the kitchen in each other’s underwear and microwave pizza rolls, Stiles suddenly so hungry that he crams two into his mouth and doesn’t care when the cheese burns him. He kisses crumbs off Scott’s lips and puts an arm around his waist, nips along his shoulders and sucks at the bump of vertebrae at the top of Scott’s spine while Scott’s facing the toaster, making Pop-Tarts because they ate all the pizza rolls. Seriously, so hungry. They pass a big bottle of soda back and forth, leaning against the counter. It’s chilly in the kitchen but Scott’s warm against his side, relaxed and happy-looking when he catches Stiles’ eye and smiles. He flicks Scott’s nipple on the way out of the room and Scott tries to grab him, racing him up the stairs.

“Dude, shh, you’ll wake my mom,” Scott hisses when Stiles puts his arms around him and they bang into the wall by Scott’s bedroom door. He’s half-laughing as he says it though.

“Don’t care,” Stiles says. He really doesn’t. He would if they actually did, because Melissa McCall is lethal if woken following a long shift, but the idea on its own doesn’t scare him. He’s got Scott hugged tight to him while they lean against the wall. He noses under Scott’s jaw, along to his ear. “I’d just use you as a human shield.”

“Traitor,” Scott says, shaky when Stiles scrapes his teeth along a tendon in Scott’s neck.

Stiles just hums, grabs two handfuls of Scott’s ass. “Think I could get you off again, right here in the hallway? Make you jizz in my shorts? See who wakes her up then.”

“Dude,” Scott says, gutpunched, which isn’t even in the same genus as a no.

“I could go down on you,” Stiles says, mainly just to put it out there as something that needs to be on the itinerary, but also because the whimpery sound Scott makes should be preserved on vinyl or put on one of those space probes with humanity’s best music for aliens to listen to.

He lets Scott go with a smirk when he feels Scott start to rub his hips in little circles up against him, watches Scott blink his way back to consciousness.

“No fair,” Scott says weakly, practically pouting, and Stiles kisses him.

“All’s fair in love and threats of mom, buddy,” he says, nudging Scott through the door.

They fall onto the bed kissing, hands on each other. Stiles smothers a jaw-cracking yawn against Scott’s shoulder. He has no idea what time it is. Late. Early. Whatever’s between those. Hour of the wolf and all that. Laying down on their sides facing each other, Stiles tucks his head down against Scott’s chest, into the warmth and familiarity and unearned safety of him, tangles their legs up and keeps Scott in the curl of his arms, even if the one Scott’s lying on falls asleep before the rest of him does. Scott kisses the top of his head and Stiles smiles, butted up against Scott’s throat.

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

There’s a second before Scott says, “When we get to blowjobs or whatever, you’re not gonna say that’s for practice too are you?”

Stiles blinks, rolls onto his back, leaves his arm pinned under Scott. He just—he can’t _believe_ —

“I hate you so much,” he says to the ceiling, feeling Scott shake next to him, the bed shake too as Scott abandons his truly pathetic attempt to pretend he’s not cracking up.

“I’m just saying,” Scott says in little bitty pieces broken up by ridiculous bursts of high-pitched laughter. “Maybe we should. For—” More laughing. Stiles bites the inside of his cheek. Scott’s laugh isn’t cute or contagious. “For when we start blowing people for real.”

Stiles holds onto his blank look while Scott rolls onto his side, doubled up and squeaking, clutching and shoving at Stiles’ arm, his side. Eventually the smile breaks out and Stiles can’t hold back anymore, laughing and swatting at Scott while Scott curls up even more, just wheezing now, all out of breath.

“Crap,” Scott croaks, still laughing, leaning across to the bedside table for his inhaler. Stiles watches him puff, shaking his head.

“See? That’s what you get,” he says, reaching out to rub Scott’s back. “Sitting on that one for long were you? Asshole.”

“Yeah,” Scott sighs, flopping onto his back. Stiles moves his hand to Scott’s chest, feeling his heart thumping away through his skin. “Worth it though.”

“I hate you,” Stiles says again, doesn’t even care that he’s smiling, that he’s not hiding shit right now. Scott smiles back at him.

“I hate you too, dude,” Scott tells him warmly, patting his arm, leaving his hand on Stiles’ elbow, thumb stroking the soft inside crook.

“Well that’s settled then,” Stiles says, lying back down next to Scott, shoulders snug, open house of a smile on his face. “We’ll just hate each other forever.”

Scott hums. He takes Stiles’ hand, leaves them both resting on his chest. “Forever and ever,” he says on an exhale, and Stiles can hear the smile even if he can’t see it, imagines Scott’s eyes being closed and his expression totally open, full of wide spaces to fit all kinds of things. “Sounds good.”


End file.
